It is to be noted here that after a period of three years, all specimens
were carefully taken out from their respective solutions and
dried by means of wrapping them in tissue papers for 3 days. The
reason tissue papers were used is because it had excellent absorbing
capabilities. Upon that, the tissue papers were removed and all
test specimens were post dried in a ‘one way moisture flow’ ventilated
oven (Model: Panasonic NN-GS597A) at 50 ◦C for one day.
This type of oven was used namely to enable the trapped moisture/
solution in the specimens to flow out the oven’s chamber (i.e.
through a one-way valve) during the drying process and at the
same time preventing the surroundings moisture to enter into the
oven’s chamber. Following to this, all specimens’ final weights were
recorded using a Setra weight balance (±0.1 mg) and their corresponding
absorption rate with respect to the different solutions is
presented in Fig. 3.